The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

I run a wine tasting club at  Tango . It's a great perk for employees, especially when their VP of Engineering (i.e. yours truly) personally invests time and energy to entertain and educate. About a third of the company attends, it's popular. To celebrate our recent D round ( $280M ) and passing 200m registered users, we splurged a little bit. See for yourself - this was a mesmerizing line-up of some of the world's greatest wines. Chave and Quintarelli were jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly great. Others - very good too. Tasting notes: JL Chave Hermitage blanc 2009 - wow, amazing wine, depth, complexity, impact! Up there with top grand cru white burgundy. Marquis d'Angerville Volnay 1er "Clos des Ducs" monopole 2006 - top wine from Volnay, complex and interesting, secondary notes, but a bit medicinal / pine-needle and in need of more time to smooth out the remaining tannins. I suspect that 2006 was not the greatest vintage of this legendary wine. Gia...

For those not familiar with Bing , it is not just a cherry or a search engine. We first learned about Bing almost 3 years ago when Rona solicited preschool recommendations from our Crescent Park neighbors for our then new-born son. Located in Stanford and part of the university research program in child development, Bing is a cozy idyllic oasis of child happiness and learning that parents aspire to get their offspring to be immersed in. We're eager to get to know the Bing community as Evan is fast-approaching preschool age. So at the Bing Harvest Moon Auction last fall, we donated a rare wine tasting to be hosted at the Domaine du Chevsky (i.e. my home) in Palo Alto. As all proceeds from this event go to the Bing Scholarship Fund, we were super excited to put this great extravaganza together. There are wine tastings.... And then there are IRON CHEVSKY wine tastings. The event was intended for a relatively small group, sized to sample several rarities without getting tipsy. We h...

Big-time tasting at K&L yesterday - serious 2009 and 2010 heavyweights. This was the first time I had the opportunity to taste 2009's and 2010's side by side. A month ago at the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux tasting in San Francisco , I was super-impressed by the quality of the 2010 vintage in Bordeaux, and at the tasting yesterday it was all the more clear next to the super highly heralded 2009 (which I also like). IMO there is no comparison - 2010's are more precise, fresher, more structured and muscular, with tremendous depth. The funny thing - I didn't even like the 2010 Leoville Barton a month ago next to the other 2010's, but yesterday it tasted awesome! Here is the mouth-watering line-up: d'Yquem "Y" 2010 Bordeaux blanc dry white Sauternes (good white of tremendous intensity, $159.99), Angelus 2009 (underwhelming, especially for the money $399.99), Palmer 2009 (best of the 2009's, $349.99), Lynch Bages 2009 and 2010 ($219...

This is the top Bordeaux tasting of the year in the Bay Area, IMO, with tremendous number of top-growth Bordeaux on hand, with owners rather than importers/distributors, presenting their famed wines. Missing were the 1st growths and many 2nd growths, but what was there was highly pedigreed nonetheless. This year's tasting in San Francisco was perhaps the highest anticipated ever. Completely packed, the first looks at the much anticipated, highly hyped 2010 vintage drew a large crowd. On the heels of the 2009 -- the 100-point Parker "vintage of the century", the 2010 was one of those rare back-to-backs that could be even better. While the 2009 is considered riper, lusher, warmer, more "new worldly" and more "hedonistic", the 2010 was expected to impress with monumental depth of everything but in a more classic (non-jammy) and impeccably balanced style. And boy, did the 2010 deliver! To my palate, this was the greatest Bordeaux vintage I've tasted...

Here is my feeling about few recent vintages from some of the tastings I've attended in the past few months. 2008 Bordeaux - This is the third time I am writing about 2008 Bordeaux. The previous article was here , when I was quite enthusiastic about the vintage. 2008's are a good value compared to 2009 and 2010, but in my latest tasting, the wines appeared lighter than 2005's and 2009's (I haven't tasted 2010 yet) and I recommend you taste before you buy. At yesterday's tasting at Beltramo's, three big names from the Left Bank seemed a bit light and thin (but still nice), especially when tasted next to the 2005 Palmer (which tasted like classic 2005, firm, dense, balanced). Even though the prices are attractive compared to 2009's and 2010's, I wouldn't buy any of the 2008's below (nor would I turn them down if someone offered them as a gift either :)). 2005 Palmer Margaux, $349.99 - good wine, full of stuffing (reminds me of borscht), ...

My baby Evan was born in 2011. By all indications, not an easy year for birth year wines that he (and I) could enjoy 20-30 years down the road. We just missed the iconic European vintage - 2010 - by a thin margin :(  For those lucky parents whose babies were born in 2010, your choices across France, Italy, and Germany are vast! Right now, I am looking closely at top 2011 Sauternes (D'Yquem, Guiraud, etc...) - Sauternes is anticipated to be one of the top performers world-wide in 2011. To a lesser extent, some of the top reds in Bordeaux are worth looking at as well (Palmer, Pontet-Canet, 1st growths on the Left Bank, and some of the top wines from Pomerol, etc). While greater vintages (like 2005 and 2010) virtually assure high quality at all levels of the cru hierarchy and thus are worth focusing on the less prestigious properties, lesser years are great for getting the top wines, as their prices may be less than half of the "great" vintages, while their performance ten...

My friend Kevin recently hosted a supreme gourmet dinner. The sweet carrot reduction sauce with caramel overtones - no sugar added - just carrots, ginger and butter! - was insane with the lobster blintzes. Pairing beautifully with a Spatlese level 2003 Riesling from JJ Prum. The lobster tail and claw with white Burgundy were absolutely positively to-die-for! The incredibly generous serving of Chateau Leoville Las Cases "super-second growth" Bordeaux was perfect with the melt-in-your-mouth short ribs and cheese-crusted polenta slices. The 2000 Las Cases was very young. Working at Google and having a 1-year old, he doesn't always have time to exercise his culinary muscles, but when he does, he takes Friday off!... Stay thirsty, my friends!

I had an opportunity to taste some 2008 Bordeaux this weekend. A year ago, they were inpenetrable, unenjoyable, and hard for me to judge. Here is what I wrote then : ...generally I didn't enjoy any of the 2008's. Very tight and ungiving, many with greenish character, tons of smoky wood and soapy spice, dark black fruits, extremely tannic and masculine at this point. I will come back to them in a year or two for further judgment. Now, a year later, after tasting this weekend, I am starting to become enthusiastic about this vintage, especially because there are great deals to be had, while the glorified 2009 and 2010 vintages are taking up the majority of critics' and consumers' attention. While retailers are dumping the 2008's at half the price of the next two vintages, I recommend you take a closer look. They are starting to open up, and reveal classical and balanced profiles of Bordeaux, at relatively low alcohol (13.5% range), and good aging potential, perhaps...

Last week was the inaugural wine tasting at my new company - Tango . The place is so cool, the head of HR actually asked me if I would conduct wine tastings! All I have to do is come up with a theme, bring wines, whatever I decide, and talk about them. For a relatively small startup, more than twenty people signed up for the "Tango Winos" wine group, the execs jumped in too - why not?! - three of them are French! The company paid for nice Riedel glasses and for the food. At Tango, we get breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, catered from popular local restaurants, suggested by the employees. But the cost of wine for the tasting group is shared among the participants. (It's a good tactic to discourage frivolous "drive-by" drinkers, even if the company were willing to pay for it.) I arranged the wine tasting to go with the dinner on Wednesday at 6pm. Since so many people told me how much they loved big, thick, juicy Napa Cabs (and on the flip-side, how they we...

Little Evan enjoying 2005 1er Cru Burgundy for his 4 week birthday! - the best red Burgundy vintage in the past 10 years, starting to drink very well!  "Oh yeah", he said! And 2005 Margaux - equally brilliant vintage in Bordeaux. "That may be too herbaceous for the untrained palate!"

At the top of Napa cabs are several cult wineries whose names cause drool from the lips of new world wine drinkers, followed by images of rapidly thinning wallet. Next to the likes of Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate and Bond Estate, Colgin and Bryant Family is Araujo . At 1600 cases of their first wine selling out at $275/bottle without any difficulty, this California darling manages to impress even old-world drinkers, especially when an opportunity arises to sample the goods with James Hayes - Araujo's VP of Sales and Marketing, previously the Wine Director at Thomas Keller's restaurant group (taking over from Paul Roberts with whom I recently met at Bond ), and Francoise Peschon, who has been overseeing Araujo’s winemaking for almost 20 years. All Araujo wines come from a single estate vineyard, called Eisele (pronounced "Eyes-lee") that has been continuously cultivated since the late 1800's. Cabernet vines were first planted in the 1960's. Until Bart and ...

The place looks like an alien spider ship just descended to take over Oakville. Sitting on the valley floor next to Highway 29 and Oakville Grocery, Opus One has a grass lawn growing on its inclined circular walls. Scott and I imagined sliding down that thing in a cardboard box, but then thought better of it lest we ruin our upscale reputations with this venerable establishment. Too late, I suppose! If you never heard of Opus One , then you've surely been living under a rock. In fact, even the far-away Japanese are so gaga over Opus that Japan is Opus' third biggest market, after US and France. There is a guy out in Kobe, who built a virtual shrine to Opus, with bottles from every vintage stacked high and wide, and savored every day of every week of every year, like a religious reminder that he is alive. The winery’s 2000 vintage was noted in volume 1 of "Kami no Shizuku" ( watch it on this blog ) - Japan's insanely popular manga with the protagonist searching th...

I bitch and moan about Bordeaux all the time . Mainly because - how often do I eat big hunks of meat?! Not often. But the truth is, I love meat. The craving comes around like the blue moon. And when that meat appetite is upon, my inner werewolf needs a steak and a Bordeaux. Or in the more elevated circles - medium-rare herb-crusted grass-fed beef prime rib on a bone, with au jus and creamy horse radish, with 1989 Ducru-Beaucaillou and 1982 Chateau Pavie - two classical Grand Cru Bordeaux producers' top wines from two top vintages of the 1980's, now in their prime. Last night, I was reminded of what it's all about. Great people, great food, great wines make great memories that last a lifetime. It took the hostess Jocelyn and her friend Peter all week of planning and all day of shopping and prep to put together an understated meal that a perfectionist foodie like myself so fully appreciates. It wasn't about haute cuisine or cooking techniques. It was about picking the bes...